Aurelle sprinted forward, blade clashing against the beast's jagged claws, sparks bursting into the frozen air. His footing faltered for a breath, knees dipping slightly, but his expression never cracked. He fought with a strange steadiness, even as fresh cuts laced his arms and blood seeped into his torn uniform. Lira, chest heaving, pressed her back against the beast's other flank, her flaming sword searing a trail across its shoulder.
The monster didn't slow. It swung with unnatural rhythm, as if its broken body remembered no pain. Where its flesh cracked, deep blue Vyre pulsed like veins of molten ice, knitting wounds together as fast as the group carved them open.
Chunks of ice rattled and split from the walls with each tremor, the beast's claws scraping the air. It seized another jagged block in its talons and began molding it, fingers working with uncanny precision. Gray, leaning against the wall some distance away, forced himself to watch despite the hammering ache spreading from his frozen hand. The ice bent, melted, and reformed beneath the beast's grip, sculpted into a grotesque humanoid frame. Blue threads stitched into it like nerves, and with a low hiss, the drowned twitched awake.
One drowned became two. Then three. The creature carved faster, as if it had done this for centuries, and each creation rose with dead, waterlogged eyes. The floor soon swarmed again with shambling forms.
Aurelle and Lira now had to fight drowned too.
Adel tried to slow them, her mist coiling through the chamber like veils of smoke, but they staggered through her concealment. Renn loosed arrow after arrow, his bowstring snapping against his fingers until they bled. His eyes darted across the chaos, and when he turned, Gray saw why.
Korr was still.
At first Gray thought exhaustion had claimed him. But as his gaze fixed, his stomach knotted. Korr's body gleamed, encased in an unnatural sheen. Metal had spread over his limbs, wrapping from ankle to shoulder like molten armor cooled to steel. It trapped him, froze him in his stance, and steam hissed from the cracks in his skin. His eyes were barely visible beneath a mask of creeping silver.
The drowned clawed at him, teeth gnashing, but none could pierce the metallic shell. His body did not bleed. It only shone.
"Korr…?" Gray whispered, but his voice was drowned beneath the clash of steel and shrieks.
The metal climbed higher, a slow, suffocating crawl. Toward his face. Toward his eyes.
Renn cursed sharply and broke from his position, planting himself in front of Korr's unmoving body. His bow cracked another shot into a drowned's skull, shattering it to ice fragments. The relief lasted less than a breath. The creature reformed from the shards.
Gray grit his teeth and turned away. He had no strength left to spare. His mind screamed for him to move, to do something. But he refused. His core was still sluggish, only a flicker of warmth returning to it. Every breath burned with the cold seeping into him.
On the front line, Aurelle's blade tore through another drowned, his sword trailing a deep blue glow that pulsed unnaturally bright. For a moment, Gray thought the drowned twitched more violently than before, its body splitting apart too quickly under his swing. And then Aurelle's sword sheared through one of the beast's Vyre-threads, the glowing cord that tethered the drowned to its master.
The drowned collapsed instantly, body scattering like ash.
Lira gasped, eyes flaring in recognition, but before she could say a word, the beast roared. Its severed string regrew in an instant, knitting back together with a ripple of blue light. The drowned reassembled, risen again as if death was nothing but a formality.
"Aurelle," Lira hissed, her blazing orange eyes locked on the beast. "How much Vyre do you still have?"
For the faintest moment, Aurelle hesitated. His lips tightened. His grip on his sword faltered just slightly before he steadied it again. "Plenty," he answered, voice even, though Gray caught the small flicker in his eyes.
Lira said nothing more. Her gaze lingered on him for only a heartbeat before she surged forward. Her sword burned brighter, fire licking up its edge, but each swing came at a terrible price. Her armor split under the beast's retaliation, jagged ice slamming into her side and tearing steel to ribbons. She staggered but did not fall.
With a guttural cry, she spun her blade into a wide arc. The beast's left arm split clean from its shoulder, flames burning through ice and sinew. The severed limb hit the ground and shattered into fragments.
But the cost came instantly.
The beast's counterblow crashed into Lira's side, shattering what remained of her armor. Her body slammed against the frozen wall, leaving a smear of blood. She stumbled back onto her feet, breath rattling. Her clothes beneath were torn, soaked in crimson. Her sword, cracked down the center, split in two.
The runes along its surface, those lines that had glowed with molten red whenever she channeled Vyre, flickered. Then died.
Her blazing orange eyes, once alight like twin torches, dimmed to a fading ember.
"Lira!" Aurelle's voice cut through the clash, sharp and commanding.
She spat blood and raised half a blade, but the fire was waning.
Gray's chest tightened. He wanted to move, to join them, but every attempt sent pain coursing up his frozen arm. His hand was a block of ice spreading cold into his veins. Still, he could not just sit there.
He turned to Renn, forcing the words past his dry throat. "Renn. What… what do you think Aurelle's affinity is?"
Renn loosed an arrow through a drowned's skull, but the thing reformed almost immediately. His jaw clenched. "I don't know," he muttered, sweat streaming down his face. "But…" His voice trailed for a heartbeat, and Gray saw the flicker of certainty in his eyes. "I've got a good guess."
He didn't say more. He couldn't. The drowned surged again, and Renn was forced to step back, firing arrow after arrow just to keep himself and Korr alive.
Gray clenched his teeth and looked forward again.
The beast towered over Aurelle and Lira, its wounds knitting, its missing arm regenerating in a slow spiral of ice and flesh. The chamber shook as it struck the walls again, dragging more ice free, molding more drowned into existence. The numbers grew, shambling bodies rising with every breath. Their groans echoed like a chorus of the dead, filling the frozen cavern with despair.
Aurelle's sword carved a glowing arc, blue light tearing at the beast's hide.
The core pulsed within the beast's chest, metallic and smooth, tendrils of blue energy flooding outward like veins. It was a heart, but not a heart. A source of power, endless and unyielding.
Lira staggered to his side, half her blade still burning faintly. She could not last. Orrin's steam hissed weaker now, his arms trembling with each release. Renn's arrows slowed, each shot more labored than the last. Adel's mist was thinner, patchy. Their Vyre reserves were dying.
The beast still roared strong, drinking deep from the frozen walls.
Gray's took a ragged and shallow breath. Watching Aurelle and Lira throw themselves against the beast while Renn struggled to keep Korr standing ate at him like fire under his ribs. He couldn't sit still anymore. His gaze dropped to the ice at his side, jagged and pulsing faintly with a blue glow. The thought alone made his stomach twist, but there was no choice. He pressed his hand to it and pulled.
The Vyre seared into him like molten metal. Pain lanced up his arm, his chest tightening until he nearly retched. His head spun violently, vision warping, bile crawling up his throat. For a heartbeat he thought he would collapse right there. Renn turned, eyes widening as he noticed, but before he could speak, Gray shoved himself upright. His legs buckled until he forced Vyre into them, burning channels alight, and staggered forward on half-dead limbs.
Nearby, Aurelle dodged a drowneds attack and lunged at the beast, driving his glowing sword across its torso. The monster shrieked, its chest cracking open wider. But as it reared back, a second slash tore into its back, deep and searing.
The beast turned sharply, snarling, and its red eyes locked not on Aurelle—
But on Gray.
Gray stood there, trembling, his katana still raised, body screaming in agony. His eyes burned with a resolve that fought against the frost consuming him.
Aurelle glanced back, surprise flickering across his otherwise calm face.
The beast hissed, low and guttural, its body twitching violently.
And in that frozen cavern, amidst the swarm of drowned, two figures stood shoulder to shoulder. Aurelle, his blade glowing with eerie blue light, and Gray, katana gripped with both hands despite the spreading ice consuming his arm.
And the cavern seemed to fall silent for a breath, as if even the air itself held still, waiting for what came next.